let me start by pointing out that i am not using the word "economic" to refer to any and every interaction individuals might have. i reject that perspective completely, and for the purposes of this question (really, for any purpose) i am not interested in it.

i think of really, really free markets (rrfm) as getherings of folks in a particular area, who come together to seek, share, gift and even exchange/trade/barter, in order to meet those needs and desires that could not be met otherwise (eg, diy). this could be a thing, an activity, ideas, anything at all i would think. a key element of exchange in this context is that there is no currency, nothing has any value other than the purely subjective value that the individuals involved in gifting/sharing/exchanging it choose for it to have in that particular moment.

i would not call a rrfm a "gift economy", both for the obvious aversion to "economy" as a concept, and because interactions would likely not always be in that form. the ways in which people interact and meet their needs and desires would be dynamic, spontaneous, and completely up to those involved.

let me point out that in my hypothetical/anarchist world, the daily interactions of life would be in that very same vein, and so an explicit rrfm would be unnecessary. but practically speaking, since people would be in smaller tribes/bands/bolos (my bolo would surely be much smaller than the 300-500 recommended by p.m.), it is likely that some needs and/or desires would not be realizable solely within a single group. and so, rrfms could be a way to bring different groups together to gift/share/exchange. of course that would also be a time to share news, gossip, stories, etc with your neighboring clans.

re: tags, i would only add atr (or spell out after-the-revolution), since it's talking about the hypothetical.

off-the-top thoughts are 1. what does viable mean? and 2. anything that decreases people's economic thinking (tit for tat, itemizing, abstracted value, etc) is in the direction i'd like us to go. and 3. this sort of thing already exists, and acts as a safety valve enabling people to survive within Kism. so at what point would it mean something more or different than that?

but maybe that brings me back to the question of what do you mean by viable? since you're talking about a post-big-change scenario, maybe you mean, would rrfm's lead (or point us) back to Kism?

nope, i don't use the term atr. add that tag if you want, it is meaningless to me. hypothetical does not imply atr to me. it just implies that it is a thought exercise.

viable... good question. i guess i mean: is it feasible/possible, and would it be desirable as an anarchistic means of relating and meeting one's needs and desires? how does it fit into folks' ideas about anarchic relations? is it "anti-economy"? what are some anarchist critiques of the idea?

the goal, in my mind, is to allow individuals to meet their needs (and desires) in an non-economic, anarchic way. so absolutely a factor is getting folks away from economic ways of thinking and behaving. a tall order, no question.

human: so for you, is all human interaction economic? if so, then clearly the first paragraph of the question includes you. if not, then could you describe human existence without "economy"? (that, btw, would be one way to view "anti-economy".)

let me clarify again: i do not think that gifting is the only possible way for people to obtain what they want and need that is anarchic. and i would say that even in a world of nothing but gifting, there is a certain degree of long-term reciprocity that will always come into play. if someone is always taking gifts and never gifting back, that person will eventually find themselves not receiving gifts. mutual aid is still an anarchic principle for me. but how that mutual aid manifests will be different for every individual interaction, and between interactions.

there are many places where really really free markets are described and discussed. they also occur periodically in many places around the world. i also imagine that in my hypothetical world, these gatherings would not necessarily resemble those i have seen (at least in terms of the stuff you see there), which often tend to reek of the excesses of modern human life. but hey, one person's trash is another's treasure, regardless of available resources.

i like the question, funky. i think about this - living non-economically - a lot. and i agree with you about the reciprocity long-term. i think that already happens in close relationships, where no one keeps score as to what each person has given or received, but if one person begins to feel drained or unappreciated for a longer period, that relationship will probably not remain strong. although even this does not always hold, for example when a person gets sick, they might receive a lot without giving. and even then, what constitutes "giving"? perhaps the people helping a sick person still receive something (gratitude, love, a sense of peace, a greater understanding of pain) in the process.

my short answer: yes.

i think "gifting" already happens in daily life, although probably much less than it once did, as more of life becomes monetized, causing more people to feel reluctant to give and to receive without thought of numbers/money/representation. you can easily give another person a neck massage without needing $60 an hour to do it, or look after a neighbors' dogs without charging money, or give something to a friend that you no long use, for example. and as you said, the simple act of sharing stuff that each person doesn't use all the time.

when i have a little more energy than i do right now, i hope to come back with some more thoughts on this.

the monetizing of life has enveloped much more than just a quantification of exchanges (like a loaf of bread for a basket of oranges)....it has become instrumental in everything people do, including the very act of birth and death. this goes hand in hand with specialization and authority - only some people "are qualified/authorized" to deal with death, for example. and so it requires not only the legal aspects, but monetary as well, upon one's death.

i don't want anyone who cares about me to have to come up with $10,000 to pay experts to handle my dead body. nor do i want them to acquire some quantity of (supposedly) tax-free bitcoins and then find some mortuary or graveyard business who accepts them in order to bury or burn me. likewise, i don't want to have to accumulate money for my loved ones deaths to then ask people i don't know to handle it.

i'd like to know i have a couple people in my life who would take my body out under the full moon at the bank of a river, make a raft out of driftwood, sit me in it, then set me ablaze before pushing me out into the water. and i'd like to at least have a couple people in my life who i, along with others who care about them, could do the same for....i call this anti-economic.

ba@ - count me in! i'll be one of those folks if we happen to be in the same geographic area at the time. i have very similar desires (i'd like my body left in the forest for the critters to do with as they will).

yes, funky! you can count me in for you too. i guess only one of us could help the other in that situation, so we'll need a couple more people to take care of both of us. thankfully, i know of at least one, probably two. :)

and when i said i'd do the same for someone else, i meant in whatever way the person would prefer, assuming i had the physical and emotional strength to do it....your preference sounds pretty simple...at least a little easier than digging a hole in the desert....

With the State still in place no freedom, market or otherwise is viable.

RRFMs may be an example of anarchist anti-economics. However, I suggest that, whilst perhaps well intended and operable at relatively small scales, neither (rrfms or 'anti-economics') are viable across large, complex modern societies.

I suggest anarchist counter-economics which embraces free exchange (but not capitalism) is more viable in our modern world because it can, over time, drain all the resources that the State uses to re-create itself.

"neither (rrfms or 'anti-economics') are viable across large, complex modern societies."

i would agree. i also do not think complex, modern societies are very likely to be viable without hierarchical institutions (eg, the state, economics, industrialism, etc). that is why i desire a very different world - of much smaller social groupings - and i try to live my life in that vein in spite of the complex, modern world that exists all around. waiting for the massive changes that are necessary for the world i desire is not something i care to do. i'd rather create my own life in the now, as best i can.

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I think this is easy to answer, actually. It strikes us as being viable/conceivable that human beings could live in this way because they once did and in a few places "still" do.

Something like this scenario was probably quite common in human history: smallish groups that mostly functioned either by direct personal exploitation or else by egalitarian consumption of natural wealth. When those groups came into contact with one another it would be either as enemies or as sporadic exchange partners.

In most such cases it seems like the exchanges were at least as much about negotiating these social ties as they were about satisfying material needs.

That this was a human possibility does certainly undermine many racist assumptions that the way things are presently arranged is necessary and immutable. That doesn't mean it is a more interesting or helpful example than any other precapitalist social form.

It can sustain itself as a fantasy mainly because it's become so far-fetched to think about, for people who have hardly any important personal social ties, no skills useful to survival outside the economy, and no wilderness to escape to.

It doesn't tell us anything at all about the possibilities immanent to capitalist society that would entail the end of that society -- which would require a different kind of investigation completely.

asker, i'd say that we may already know it, but this way of relating has slipped from our consciousness....and from our daily experience of life. so the experiences in life that have become monetized far outweigh those that haven't.

funky, yes, and yes. but perhaps not a slope as much as a soup.....because i see all these aspects as related.

asker: i'm not sure what your point is? that rrfms should not be in this discussion? that a real-world example should not be used as fodder for envisioning/creating a different way of living and relating? not being antagonistic here, just wanting to understand.

I don't think we disagree that much. I just mean that there are limits to what can be done with positive real-world examples.

You're saying that it's possible and desirable, to some extent, to replicate what you've seen of the gatherings that Southwest indigenous groups are doing. Who are themselves attempting to replicate and keep alive practices that have nearly been impossibilized b/c of colonization. You're admitting that you don't see this as a way out, only as an immediately experience-able thing within the capitalist world. I agree with that, since I think it's in the nature of capital to break its local bonds and dominate everything in the world - but not in the nature of exchange ceremonies to exert the same kind of force.

Where we disagree is that I think however appealing and interesting a local alternative structure might be, no such structure can tell us about the end of capitalism -- and unfortunately capitalism is going to continue destroying these structures and the conditions of possibility for them if it is not itself destroyed.

Also, I guess I'm skeptical that people's consciousness can be altered by local/temporary events in the way you're describing. The commodity world feels so objective, it will reassert itself very quickly.

asker: i am not saying it is desirable to replicate anything, rrfms or gatherings of the tribes. i am saying (or asking if, in the context of the original question) those are examples of ways humans can (and have, and do) create ways of interacting that aren't completely subsumed by the capitalist world around them.

i desire for those to be examples not of temporary events, but examples of different ways of relating, particularly around meeting one's needs and desires.

i would much rather find and create different ways of relating in my life, on an ongoing basis, than to not do as such because capitalism still exists. i want capitalism gone as much as anyone, but i also have a life to live; one i will not subvert to some unforeseeable future revolution that eliminates capitalism, the state, etc. i used to think that way, and all it got me was more anger, stress and hatred - and not one iota closer to a world without those institutions of domination. so i realized that i could actually do things in my own life that distance me (and hopefully, at least some of those i care about) from that hellhole. not ideal by any stretch, but a fuckload better than living my life for some future i doubt will ever exist (and i'm fairly certain it won't in my lifetime).

you seem to think that anything short of the end of capitalism is a pointless exercise. i don't. doesn't mean we don't both want the end of capitalism, it just means we will be doing very different things in our here and now.

i see having temporary events that exemplify strong desires in life as kind of like the escape from "real life" that so many look forward to in "vacations". kind of like folks that bliss out at a rainbow gathering for a week every year, then spend the rest of the year at their workaday lives.

i never understood why so many people only spent a week or two a year being somewhere they love so much. i never had much in the way of vacations, but i always thought: if i ever find a place i love that much, i want to live there, not save up all year just to be there for a week. i found that place over 16 years ago, and i left my somewhat typical urban life to go live a super simple, off-grid life there. i could not possibly convey how liberating that was, and i have lived that way ever since (though circumstances just recently caused me to leave that particular place and find a similar life elsewhere).